I am surprised by the slightly pompous attitude of some of the posters. It is a little arrogant to suggest that just because there was an investigation BAE must be guilty of something.
I am not a fan of BAE, particularly as I am itimately involved with dealing with their middle and senior management in my current role. They are not team players by any stretch. It appears to have escaped their attention that we are at war and are just using the current conflicts to rip us off for as much as they can get.
That said, when it comes to multi-billion pound trade deals with nations that are important to us economically and strategically I think we have to maintain a healthy dose of pragmatism. Those of you baying for BAE blood would presumably be happy if they went to the dogs or lost a contract of this nature because that is what they deserve.
Presumably you would be happy to hand out the P45's to those who would lose their jobs as a result of a failure in
realpolitik between the UK and KSA so that you could feel smug on top of your moral pile. Admittedly the number of 50,000 jobs bandied about is ridiculous but there are significant UK jobs, in the thousands, riding on this.
Anybody who believes that slightly dubious marketing and
PR practices that may happen when dealing with nations outside our comfortable western clique have obviously never tried to win a contract in a former soviet republic or any number of other countries that we could all name.
We cannot be so arrogant as to judge everyone by our own blue sky standards - different cultures do things differently. 'When in Rome' (or Riyadh etc). Perhaps those of you out there with the correct moral compass that I am clearly lacking would prefer that we boycotted completely any nation without our rigorous adherence to democracy (the West Lothian question, NHS postcode lottery, legal subservience to unelected EU commissions etc etc are not really a shining beacon are they) - it is all relative.
To clarify, I don't like BAE but I support their workers and the strength that they do give to British industry and technology.
I think the current government is the most morally bankrupt, undemocratic and corrupt government in living memory.
All that said, it was the correct decision to drop the SFO inquiry for the UK as a whole.